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Tondo (; Baybayin: , Kapampangan: Balen ning Tundo), sometimes referred to as the Kingdom of Tondo, was a Tagalog and Kapampangan settlement which served as a major trade hub located on the northern part of the Pasig River delta on Luzon Island. Together with Maynila, the polity ( bayan) that was also situated on the southern part of the Pasig River delta, Tondo had established a shared monopoly on the trade of Chinese goods throughout the rest of the Philippine archipelago, making it an established force in trade throughout Southeast Asia and East Asia.
Tondo is of particular interest to Filipino historians and historiography because it is one of the oldest historically documented settlements in the Philippines. Scholars generally agree that it was mentioned in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, the Philippines' oldest extant locally produced written document, dating back to 900 A.D.
Following contact with the Spanish beginning in 1570 and the defeat of local rulers in the Manila Bay area in 1571, Tondo was ruled from Intramuros, a Spanish fort built on the remains of the Maynila polity. Tondo's absorption into the Spanish Empire effectively ended its status as an independent political entity; it now exists as a district of the modern Manila.
It is referred to in academic circles as the " Tondo polity" or " Tondo settlement", and the earliest Tagalog dictionaries categorized it as a " bayan and Balayan in Kapampangan" (a "city-state", "country" or "polity", ).
Early travellers from monarchical cultures who had contacts with Tondo (including the Chinese, Portuguese and the Spanish) often initially referred to it as the " Kingdom of Tondo". Early Augustinian chronicler Pedro de San Buenaventura explained this to be an error as early as 1613 in his Vocabulario de la lengua tagala, but historian Vicente L. Rafael notes that the label was nevertheless later adapted by the popular literature of the Spanish colonial era because Spanish language writers of the time did not have the appropriate words for describing the complex power relations on which Maritime Southeast Asian leadership structures were built. The earliest Spanish accounts referred to Tondo as a smaller settlement compared to the fortified polity of Manila, a characterization that reflects Spanish perceptions rather than the settlement's actual complexity.
Politically, Tondo was made up of several social groupings, traditionally referred to by historians as barangays, which were led by . These datus in turn recognised the leadership of Paramount ruler as a sort of "paramount datu" called a lakan over the bayan. In the middle to late 16th century, its lakan was held in high regard within the alliance group which was formed by the various Manila Bay area polities, which included Tondo, Maynila, and various polities in Bulacan and Pampanga. Extrapolating from available data, the demographer-historian Linda A. Newson has estimated that Tondo may have had a population of roughly 43,000 when the Spanish first arrived in 1570.
Culturally, the Kapampangan and Tagalog people of Tondo had a rich Austronesian (specifically Malayo-Polynesian) culture, with its own expressions of language and writing, religion, art, and music dating back to the earliest peoples of the archipelago. (2011). 9789719429203, Artpostasia Pte Ltd. ISBN 9789719429203 This culture was later influenced by its trading relations with the rest of Maritime Southeast Asia. Particularly significant were its relations with Ming dynasty, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Majapahit empire, which served as the main conduit for significant Greater India, despite the Philippine archipelago's geographical location outside the Indian cultural zone.Martin Haspelmath, The World Atlas of Language Structures , page 569, Oxford University Press, 2005,
Scott lists the sources for the study of Philippine prehistory as: archaeology, linguistics and paleogeography, foreign written documents, and quasi-historical genealogical documents. In a later work, he conducts a detailed critique of early written documents and surviving oral or folk traditions connected with the Philippines early historic or protohistoric era.
Sources Scott, Jocano, and Junker consider particularly relevant to the study of the Tondo and Maynila settlements include:
Primary sources for the history of Rajah Kalamayin's Namayan, further upriver, include artifacts dug up from archaeological digs (the earliest of which was Robert Fox's work for the National Museum in 1977) and Spanish colonial records (most notably those compiled by the 19th-century Franciscan historian Fray Felix Huerta).
A more detailed discussion of notable archaeological, documentary, and genealogical sources can be found towards the end of this article.
F. Landa Jocano warns that in the case of early Philippine history, it's essential that "even archaeological findings" be carefully interpreted by experts, because these can be misinterpreted if not analyzed in proper context.
However, the precolonial settlement of Tondo has also been described using several descriptors.
The earliest firsthand Spanish accounts described it as a smaller " village", in comparison to the fortified polity of Maynila. However, this term is no longer used in academic circles because it reflects the strong eurocentrism bias of the Spanish colonizers.
Travellers from monarchical cultures who had contacts with Tondo (including the Chinese, Portuguese and the Spanish) also often initially mislabelled it as the " Kingdom of Tondo". Early Augustinian chronicler Pedro de San Buenaventura explained this to be an error as early as 1613 in his Vocabulario de la lengua tagala. Historian Vicente L. Rafael notes, however, that the label was later adapted by the popular literature of the Spanish colonial era anyway because Spanish-language writers of the time did not have the appropriate words for describing the complex power relations on which Maritime Southeast-Asian leadership structures were built.
Historian F. Landa Jocano has described Tondo using the term "large barangay", making Tondo out to be a larger version of what Filipino historians have traditionally considered the "basic political structure" of pre-colonial societies. However, the use of the term "barangay" for such purposes has recently been brought to question by historian Damon Woods, who believes that the use of this term was the result of a 20th-century American mistranslation of the writings of Juan de Plasencia.
To avoid cross-cultural inaccuracies regarding the political structure of Tondo, it is usually described in academic texts using generic umbrella terms, where it is described as the " Tondo polity" or " Tondo settlement".
However, Tondo's territorial boundaries are generally accepted as defined by several bodies of water which gave Tondo an island shape:
Notably, the area of modern Tondo now known as "Gagalangin" is not believed to have been part of Tondo's original "territory", since it was a place grown wild with plants in olden days.
The shoreline of the modern district of Tondo has been significantly altered by reclamation activities. Pre-reclamation maps of Tondo show a relatively straight shoreline from the beachfront of Intramuros to the mouth of the Estero de Vitas.Duque de AlmodĂłvar, Madrid, 1787. Plan de Manila, su Bahia, y Puerto de Cavite.
Tondo's territorial boundaries also excluded territory occupied by Maynila Namayan (modern day Santa Ana and Mandaluyong),Locsin, Leandro V. and Cecilia Y. Locsin. 1967. Oriental Ceramics Discovered in the Philippines. Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company. Tambobong (modern day Malabon), Butas (modern day Navotas), Pandacan, and Pasay – all of which had their own respective leaders.
Another notable area controlled by Tondo was on the banks of the Estero de Vitas, called "Sunog Apog", which eventually lent its name to the nearby Estero de Sunog Apog in Gagalangin. This area was noted for the production of lime ( apog) through the burning ( pag-sunog) of oyster ( talaba) shells, and a lime kiln was still present in the area by 1929.
Junker describes this structure as an "alliance group", which she describes as having "a relatively decentralized and highly segmentary structure" similar to other polities in Maritime Southeast Asia:
"In the Philippines, the primary unit of collective political action appears to have been an organizationally more fluid "alliance group," [...] made up of perpetually shifting leader-focused factions, represented the extension of [...] power over individuals and groups through various alliance-building strategies, but not over geographically distinct districts or territories."
The Malacañang Presidential Museum, on the other hand, described this political setup in their 2015 Araw ng Maynila briefers as an "alliance network."
This explains the confusion experienced by Martin de Goiti during the first Spanish forays into Bulacan and Pampanga in late 1571. Until that point, Spanish chroniclers continued to use the terms "king" and "kingdom" to describe the polities of Tondo and Maynila, but Goiti was surprised when Lakandula explained there was "no single king over these lands", and that the leadership of Tondo and Maynila over the Kapampangan polities did not include either territorial claim or absolute command. San Buenaventura (1613, as cited by Junker, 1990 and Scott, 1994) later noted that Tagalogs only applied the term Hari (King) to foreign monarchs, rather than their own leaders.
Patanne, as well as Abinales and Amoroso, interpret Postma's translation of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription as meaning that this influence-via-alliance-network defined Tondo's relationship with the territories of Binwangan, Pailah, and Puliran, which Postma believed to be in Bulacan/Pampanga.
Polities in Bulacan and Pampanga which were supposedly under the influence of Tondo and Maynila's alliance network include, but are not limited to:
The interpretation of Puliran as part of Tondo and Maynila's alliance network is instead implied by the challenge posed by the Pila Historical Society Foundation and local historian Jaime F. Tiongson to Postma's assertions regarding the exact locations of places mentioned in the Laguna copperplate.
According to Tiongson's interpretation: Pailah refers to Pila; Puliran refers to Puliran, the old name of the territory that occupied the southeastern part of Laguna de Bay at the time; and Binwangan refers to modern-day Barangay Binawangan in Capalonga, Camarines Norte.
Polities in the Puliran region which were supposedly under the influence of Tondo and Maynila's alliance network include, but are not limited to:
In his seminal 1994 work Barangay: Sixteenth Century Philippine Culture and Society (further simplified in the briefer by the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office in 2015), historian William Henry Scott delineates the three classes of Tagalog society during the 1500s:
The term datu or lakan, or apo refers to the chief, but the noble class to which the datu belonged to was known as the maginoo class. Any male member of the maginoo class can become a datu by personal achievement.
The term timawa referring to freemen came into use in the social structure of the Tagalogs within just twenty years after the coming of the Spaniards. The term, however, was being incorrectly applied to former alipin (commoner and slave class) who have escaped bondage by payment, favor, or flight. Unlike the Visayan timawa, the Tagalog timawa were primarily freemen with less emphasis on military roles, reflecting the differing societal structures of the regions. The equivalent warrior class in the Tagalog society was present only in Laguna, and they were known as the maharlika class.
At the bottom of the social hierarchy are the members of the alipin class. There are two main subclasses of the alipin class. The aliping namamahay who owned their own houses and served their masters by paying tribute or working on their fields were the commoners and , while the aliping sa gigilid who lived in their masters' houses were the servants and slaves.
The more complex social structure of the Tagalogs was less stable during the arrival of the Spaniards because it was still in a process of differentiating.
The equivalent paramount datus who led the southern polity of Maynila were referred to using the term "", and in Mindanao, a similar title in more Islamized polities was that of "sultan".
The term for the barangay social groupings refers to the large ships called balangay, which were common on such coastal polities, and is used by present-day scholars to describe the leadership structure of settlements in early Philippine history. This leads to some confusion for modern readers, because the term "barangay" was also later adapted (through the 1991 Local Government Code) as a replacement for the Spanish term barrio to describe the smallest administrative division in the Philippines – a government structure very different from the original meaning of the word.
In addition, Jocano warns that there were significant differences between "smaller" barangays, which were only 30 to 100 households in size, and considerably larger barangays, which according to Buenaventura were called "bayan". Jocano asserted that the social and governance structures of these larger barangays, with high levels of economic specialization and a clear system of social stratification, should be the primary model for the analysis of social structures in early Philippine history, rather than the "smaller" barangays.
Popular literature has described these political entities as either chiefdoms or kingdoms. Although modern scholars such as Renfew note that these are not appropriate technical descriptions.
Contemporary historiographers specializing in early Philippine history prefer to use the generic term "polity" in international journals, avoiding the terms "chiefdom" and "kingdom" altogether.
Scholars such as William Henry Scott and F. Landa Jocano have continued to use the term "barangay", especially in longer-form texts such as books and anthologies, because these longer forms allow space for explanations of the differences between the modern and archaic uses of the word "barangay".
While these Hindu-Buddhist cultural influences can ultimately be traced to the cultures of the Indian subcontinent, scholars generally do not believe that it indicates physical contact between the Philippines and India. The scope, sequence, and mechanism of Indian cultural influences in early Philippine polities continues to be an active area of research and are the subject of much debate among scholars of Philippine and Southeast Asian history and historiography.
During the reign of Sultan Bolkiah in 1485 to 1521, the Bruneian Empire decided to break Tondo's monopoly in the China trade by attacking Tondo and establishing the state of Maynila as a Bruneian satellite-state. Pusat Sejarah Brunei . Retrieved February 7, 2009.
The Tagalogs did not have a specific name for this set of religious beliefs and practices, although later scholars and popular writers referred to it as Anitism,Almocera, Ruel A., (2005) Popular Filipino Spiritual Beliefs with a proposed Theological Response. in Doing Theology in the Philippines. Suk, John., Ed. Mandaluyong: OMF Literature Inc. Pp 78–98 or, less accurately, using the general term " animism."
According to the early Spanish missionary-ethnographers, the Tagalog people believed in a creator-god named Bathala, whom they referred to both as maylicha (creator; lit. "actor of creation") and maycapal (lord, or almighty; lit. "actor of power"). Loarca and Chirino also report that in some places, they were called "Molayri" (Molaiari) or "Diwata" (Dioata)." However, these early missionary-ethnographers also noted that the Tagalogs did not include Bathala in their daily acts of worship ( pag-a-anito). Buenaventura was informed that this was because the Tagalogs believed Bathala was too mighty and distant to be bothered with the concerns of mortal man, and so the Tagalogs focused their acts of appeasement to "lesser" deities and powers, immediate spirits which they believed had control over their day-to-day life.
Because the Tagalogs did not have a collective word to describe all these spirits together, Spanish missionaries eventually decided to call them "anito," since they were the subject of the Tagalog's act of pag-aanito (worship). According to Scott, accounts and early dictionaries describe them as intermediaries ("Bathala's agents"), and the dictionaries used the word abogado (advocate) when defining their realms. These sources also show, however, that in practice, they were addressed directly: " in actual prayers, they were petitioned directly, not as intermediaries." Modern day writers divide these spirits are broadly into the categories of "Ancestor spirits, nature spirits, and guardian spirits," although they also note that the dividing line between these categories is often blurred.
Demetrio, Cordero-Fernando, and Nakpil Zialcita observe that the Luzon Tagalogs and Kapampangans' use of the word "Anito", instead of the word "Diwata" which was more predominant in the Visayan regions, indicated that these peoples of Luzon were less influenced by the Hindu and Buddhist beliefs of the Majapahit empire than the Visayans were. They also observed that the words were used alternately amongst the peoples in the southernmost portions of Luzon – the Bicol Region, Marinduque, Mindoro, etc. They suggested that this would have represented a transitional area, the front lines of an increased "Indianized" Majapahit influence which was making its way north the same way Islam was making its way north from Mindanao.
Osborne (2004) describes a process of "adaptation" happening in connection with Hindu and Buddhist influences in the various cultures of Maritime Southeast Asia, and emphasizes that this "indianization" of Southeast Asia did not per-se overwrite existing indigenous patterns, cultures, and beliefs:
" Because Indian culture "came" to Southeast Asia, one must not think that Southeast Asians lacked a culture of their own. Indeed, the generally accepted view is that Indian culture made such an impact on Southeast Asia because it fitted easily with the existing cultural patterns and religious beliefs of populations that had already moved a considerable distance along the path of civilization.… Southeast Asians, to summarize the point, borrowed but they also adapted. In some very important cases, they did not need to borrow at all."
Milner (2011) suggests that this pattern of adaptation reflects what Wolters (1999) calls "localization," a process by which foreign ideas ("specifically Indian materials") could be "fractured and restated and therefore drained of their original significance" in the process of being adopted into "various local complexes."Wolters, O. W. (1999). 9781501732607, Southeast Asia Publications, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University. ISBN 9781501732607
The Laguna Copperplate Inscription, which is the artifact which specifically points to an Indian cultural (linguistic) influence in Tondo, does not explicitly discuss religious practices. However, some contemporary Buddhist practitioners believe that its mention of the Hindu calendar month of Vaisakha (which corresponds to April/May in the Gregorian Calendar) implies a familiarity with the Hindu sacred days celebrated during that month.
Elsewhere in the Philippines, Hindu and Buddhist religious influences are evidenced by the presence of explicitly religious artifactsH. Otley Beyer, "Outline Review of Philippine Archaeology by Islands and Provinces," Philippine Journal of Science, Vol.77, Nos.34 (July–August 1947), pp. 205–374Dang V.T. and Vu, Q.H., 1977. The excavation at Giong Ca Vo site. Journal of Southeast Asian Archaeology 17: 30–37 – in at least one case as close to Tondo as Calatagan, Batangas.
Contemporary Buddhist practitioners believe that Filipino cultures would have been exposed to the Vajrayana and Theravada schools of Buddhism through their trade contacts with the SriVijaya and Majapahit, and archeological findings on the Island of Luzon have produced artifacts associated with the Mahayana school of Buddhism.
Islamization was a slow process characterised by with the steady conversion of the citizenry of Tondo and Manila which created Muslim domains. Islamization of Luzon began in the 16th century when traders from Brunei settled in the Manila area and married locals while maintaining kinship and trade links with Brunei and thus other Muslim centres in Southeast Asia. The Muslims were called "Moro people" by the Spanish who assumed they occupied the whole coast. There is no evidence that Islam had become a major political or religious force in the region, with Father Diego de Herrera recording that the Moros lived only in some villages and were Muslim in name only.Teodoro Agoncillo, History of the Filipino People, p. 22
Specialized industries in the Tagalog and Kapampangan regions, including Tondo and Maynila, included agriculture, textile weaving, basketry, metallurgy, hunting, among others. The social stratification which gave birth to the Maginoo class created a demand for prestige products including ceramics, textiles, and precious stones. This demand, in turn, served as the impetus for both internal and external trade.
Junker notes that significant work still needs to be done in analyzing the internal/local supply and demand dynamics in pre-Spanish era polities, because much of the prior research has tended to focus on their external trading activities. Scott notes that early Spanish lexicons are particularly useful for this analysis, because these early dictionaries captured many words which demonstrate the varied nuances of these local economic activities.
The Chinese migrations to Malaysia and the Philippines shore began in the 7th century and reached their peak after 1644 owing to the Manchu conquest of Ancient China. These Chinese immigrants settled in Manila, Pasig included, and in the other ports, which were annually visited by their trade junks, they have cargoes of silk, tea, ceramics, and their precious jade stones.
According to William Henry Scott (1982), when ships from China came to Manila bay, Lakandula would remove the sails and rudders of their ships until they paid him duties and anchorage fees, and then he would then buy up all their goods himself, paying half its value immediately and then paying the other half upon their return the following year. In the interim, these goods would be traded throughout the rest of the archipelago. The end result was that other locals were not able to buy anything from the Chinese directly, but from Tondo and Maynila, who made a tidy profit as a result.
Augustinian Fray Martin de Rada Legaspi says that the Tagalogs were " more traders than warriors", and Scott notes in a later book (1994) that Maynila's ships got their goods from Tondo and then dominated trade through the rest of the archipelago. People in other parts of the archipelago often referred to Maynila's boats as "Chinese" (Sina or Sinina) because they came bearing Chinese goods.
The Piloncitos a type of gold ingots are small, some are of the size of a corn kernel—and weigh from 0.09 to 2.65 grams of fine gold. Large Piloncitos weighing 2.65 grams approximate the weight of one mass. Piloncitos have been excavated from Mandaluyong, Bataan, the banks of the Pasig River, and Batangas. That gold was mined and worked here is evidenced by many Spanish accounts, like one in 1586 that said:
Other than piloncitos, the people of Tondo also used the Barter rings, which is gold ring-like . These barter rings are bigger than doughnuts in size and are made of nearly pure gold. Barter rings were circulated in the Philippines up to the 16th century.
Notably, the 1521 account of "Prince" Ache, who would later become Rajah Matanda, cites a bitter territorial dispute between Maynila, then ruled by Ache's mother, and Tondo, then ruled separately by Ache's cousin. This conflict was enough to cause Ache to run away to his uncle, the Sultan of Brunei, in a bid to martial some military support as leverage against Tondo.
The Dutch anthropologist Antoon Postma has concluded that the Laguna Copperplate Inscription contains that might be corresponding to certain places in modern Philippines; such as Tundun (Tondo); Pailah (Paila, now an enclave of Barangay San Lorenzo, Norzagaray); Binwangan (Binuangan, now part of Obando); and Puliran (Pulilan). The toponym of Mdaŋ in particular, is interesting since it might correspond to the Javanese Mataram Kingdom, in present-day Indonesia, which flourished around the same period ( 9th to 10th century). However, the nature of Tondo's relations with Java is not clear.
At the time, Rajah Matanda's mother (whose name was not mentioned in the accounts) served as the paramount ruler of the Maynila polity, taking over from Rajah Matanda's father (also unnamed in the accounts, assumed to be Salalila), who had died when Rajah Matanda was still very young. Rajah Matanda, then simply known as the "Young Prince" Ache, was raised alongside his cousin, who was ruler of Tondo – presumed by some to be a young Bunao Lakandula, while historian Ian Christopher Alfonso in his 2016 study identifies the unnamed cousin as Malanci or Malangsi, who was mentioned in the "Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas" as the son of Prince Balagtas and Panginoan, who was the uncle and aunt of Ache respectively, thereby corroborating the theory. However, the identity of the elder cousin itself was not specifically named in the Spanish accounts.
During this time, Ache realized that his cousin, who was ruler of the Tondo polity, was " slyly" taking advantage of Ache's mother by taking over territory belonging to Maynila. When Ache asked his mother for permission to address the matter, his mother refused, encouraging the young prince to keep his peace instead. Prince Ache could not accept this and thus left Maynila with some of his father's trusted men, to go to his "grandfather", the Sultan of Brunei, to ask for assistance. The Sultan responded by giving Ache a position as commander of his naval force.
In 1521, Prince Ache was coming fresh from a military victory at the helm of the Bruneian navy and was supposedly on his way back to Maynila with the intent of confronting his cousin when he came upon and attacked the remnants of the Magellan expedition, then under the command of Sebastian Elcano. Some historiansJose Rizal, as cited by Dery, 2001 suggest that Ache's decision to attack must have been influenced by a desire to expand his fleet even further as he made his way back to Lusong and Maynila, where he could use the size of his fleet as leverage against his cousin, the ruler of Tondo.
While Spanish colonizers first arrived in the Philippines in 1521, the Spanish only reached the Manila Bay area and its settlements in 1570, when Miguel LĂłpez de Legazpi sent MartĂn de Goiti to investigate reports of a prosperous Moro people settlement on the island of Luzon.
De Goiti arrived in mid-1570 and was initially well received by Maynila's ruler Rajah Matanda, who, as former commander of the Naval forces of Brunei, had already had dealings with the Magellan expedition in late 1521. Negotiations broke down, however, when another ruler, Rajah Sulayman, arrived and began treating the Spanish belligerently, saying that the Tagalog people would not surrender their freedoms as easily as the "painted" Visayans did. The accounts of the De Goiti mission report that Tondo's ruler, Lakandula, sought to participate in these negotiations early on, but De Goiti intentionally ignored Lakandula because he wanted to focus on Maynila, which Legaspi wanted to use as a headquarters because it was already fortified, whereas Tondo was not.
By May 24, 1570, negotiations had broken down, and according to the Spanish accounts, their ships fired their cannon as a signal for the expedition boats to return. Whether or not this claim was true, the rulers of Maynila perceived this to be an attack and as a result, Sulayman ordered an attack on the Spanish forces still within the city. The battle was very brief because it concluded with the settlement of Maynila being set ablaze.
The Spanish accounts claim that De Goiti ordered his men to set the fire, historians today still debate whether this was true. Some historians believe it is more likely that the Maynila forces themselves set fire to their settlement, because scorched-earth retreats were a common military tactic among the peoples of the Philippine archipelago at the time.
De Goiti proclaimed victory, symbolically claimed Maynila on behalf of Spain, then quickly returned to Legaspi because he knew that his naval forces were outnumbered. Contemporary writers believe the survivors of Maynila's forces would have fled across the river to Tondo and other neighboring towns.
LĂłpez de Legazpi began negotiating with Rajah Matanda and Lakandula to use Maynila as his base of operations, and an agreement was reached by May 19, 1571. According to Spanish accounts, Sulayman began participating in the discussions again when he apologized to the Spanish for his aggressive actions of the previous year, saying that they were the product of his "youthful passion." As a result of these talks, it was agreed that Lakandula would join De Goiti in an expedition to make overtures of friendship to the various polities in Bulacan and Pampanga, with whom Tondo and Maynila had forged close alliances. This was met with mixed responses, which culminated in the Battle of Bangkusay Channel.
The defeat at Bangkusay significantly weakened resistance against the Spanish among the Pasig River settlements, paving the way for the establishment of Spanish authority.
Besides the two, the other leaders were Magat Salamat, son of Lakandula and a ruler of Tondo; Juan Banal, another ruler of Tondo and Salamat's brother-in-law; Geronimo Basi and Gabriel Tuambacar, brothers of AgustĂn de Legazpi; Pedro Balingit, the Lord of Pandakan; Felipe Salonga, the Lord of Polo; Dionisio Capolo (Kapulong), the Lord of Kandaba and brother of Felipe Salonga; Juan Basi, the Lord of Tagig; Esteban Taes (also Tasi), the Lord of Bulakan; Felipe Salalila, the Lord of Misil (Maysilo); AgustĂn Manuguit, son of Felipe Salalila; Luis Amanicaloa, another ruler of Tondo; Felipe Amarlangagui, the commander-and-chief of Katanghalan; Omaghicon, the Minister of Nabotas, and Pitongatan (Pitong Gatang), another ruler of Tondo and two governors from Malolos and Guiguinto.Corpuz, Onofre (1989). The Roots of the Filipino Nation. University of the Philippines Press. pp. 111–119.
| Senepati | Jayadewa | Senapati (Admiral), known in the LCI as the ruler who gave the pardon to Namwaran and his relatives Dayang Angkatan and Buka for their excessive debts in . | Identified in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription as the ruler of Tondo in | Identification as ruler of Tondo in proposed by Antoon Postma and generally accepted by Philippine historiographers | |
| Lakan or Lakandula | Unnamed, presumably Malangsi | The unnamed ruler of Tondo who was Ache's older cousin who attacked Maynila under the regency of Ache's unnamed mother, who was the daughter of Sultan Bolkiah, according to an 1882 Spanish document, identified as Malanci or Malangsi, firstborn son of Prince Balagtas and Panginoan | Floruit 1521 | "Coleccion de Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España" by the Marquis of Fuensanta del Valle (1882) Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas (cited by Dery, 2001 ) | Identification by Ian Christopher Alfonso (2016) as Malanci or Malangsi, the firstborn son of Prince Balagtas |
| Lakan or Lakandula | Pansomun, later baptized as Don Fernando Malang Balagtas | Claimed to be a native of Tabungao, son of Malanci and Mandic, with the title of "Lakandula", presumably of Tondo, later died in Binalatongan, Pangasinan. | Floruit 1521–1589 | Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas (cited by Dery, 2001 ) | Authenticity of Balagtas and his will questioned by Isabelo de los Reyes and William Henry Scott, but supported by Luis Camara Dery and Ian Christopher Alfonso |
| Lakan or Lakandula | Lakandula|Bunao Lakandula, Lakan of Tondo, he is the last ruler which possess the title of " Lakan". | Birth: – Death: " Three years after" Legazpi and Rajah Matanda, who both died in 1572." Reign: | Multiple firsthand accounts from the Legaspi Expedition (early 1570s); Spanish genealogical documents | Firsthand accounts generally accepted by Philippine historiographers, with corrections for hispanocentric bias subject to scholarly peer review; veracity of genealogical documents subject to scholarly peer review. | |
| Don (Presumably Lakan, but the actual use of the term is not recorded in historical documents.) | Agustin de Legaspi | The last Tagalog ruler of Tondo; son of Rajah Sulayman, proclaimed Lakandula of Tondo after the death of Bunao Lakandula. Co-instigator of the 1588 Tondo Conspiracy along with his cousin Magat Salamat (Lakandula's son); caught and executed by the Spanish, resulting in the dissolution of Tondo.|1575–1589 | Firsthand accounts of the Legaspi Expedition (mid-1570s); Spanish genealogical documents | Firsthand accounts generally accepted by Philippine historiographers, with corrections for hispanocentric bias subject to scholarly peer review; veracity of genealogical documents subject to scholarly peer review. |
Scholarly acceptance of the details recounted in these accounts vary from case to case, and are subject to scholarly peer review.
| " Princess" or " Lady" (term used in oral tradition, as documented by Odal-Devora) | Empress Sasanban | In folk tradition recounted by Nick Joaquin and Leonardo Vivencio, a "lady of Namayan" who went to the Majapahit court to marry Emperor Soledan, eventually giving birth to Balagtas, who then returned to Namayan/Pasig. This was estimated by Mariano A. Henson to have occurred somewhere around 1335–1380. According to the Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas cited by Luis Camara Dery (2001), a lady of Sapa who married Emperor Soledan and mother of Prince Balagtas. | 13th or 14th century | Folk Tradition cited by Leonardo Vivicencio and Nick Joaquin
Estimated dates by Mariano A. Henson
Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas (cited by Dery, 2001 )First mentioned in the Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas, then cited in non-academic work by Nick Joaquin, then later mentioned in Odal-Devora, 2000. | |
| " Princess" or " Lady" (term used in oral tradition, as documented by Odal-Devora) | Panginoan | In Batangueño Folk Tradition as cited by Odal-Devora, the daughter of Kalangitan and Lontok who were rulers of Pasig, who eventually married Balagtas, King of Balayan and Taal. In Kapampangan Folk Tradition as cited by Odal-Devora, who eventually married Bagtas, the "grandson of Kalangitan." In oral tradition recounted by Nick Joaquin and Leonardo Vivencio, "Princess Panginoan of Pasig" who was married by Balagtas, the son of Emperor Soledan of Majapahit in 1300 in an effort consolidate rule of Namayan. According to the Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas cited by Luis Camara Dery (2001), a daughter of Lontok and Kalangitan who married Prince Balagtas, son of the Emperor Soledan and Empress Sasanban of Sapa. | 15th century | Batangueño folk tradition, Kapampangan folk tradition, Oral tradition cited by Vivencio and Joaquin Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas (cited by Dery, 2001 )First mentioned in the Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas, then cited in non-academic work by Nick Joaquin, then later mentioned in Odal-Devora, 2000. | |
| Gat | Rajah Lontok | In Batangueño Folk Tradition as cited by Odal-Devora, husband of Kalangitan, serving as "rulers of Pasig" together. According to the Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas cited by Luis Camara Dery (2001), a son of Lakantagkan/Arao and Buwan/Maylac, who married Kalangitan of Pasig. | 15th century | Kapampangan folk tradition Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas (cited by Dery, 2001 ) | First mentioned in the Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas, then cited in non-academic work by Nick Joaquin, then later mentioned in Odal-Devora, 2000. |
| Dayang or Sultana | Kalangitan | Legendary "Lady of the Pasig" in Batangueño Folk Tradition and "Ruler of Sapa" in Kapampangan Folk Tradition (as documented by Odal-Devora).
Either the mother in law ( Batangueño Tradition) or grandmother ( Kapampangan Tradition) of the ruler known as "Prinsipe Balagtas"
According to the Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas cited by Luis Camara Dery (2001), a lady of the Pasig who married Lontok, son of Arao and Maylac. | 15th century | Kapampangan folk tradition Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas (cited by Dery, 2001 ) | First mentioned in the Will of Fernando Malang Balagtas, then cited in non-academic work by Nick Joaquin, then later mentioned in Odal-Devora, 2000. |
| Sultan | Bolkiah | Sultan Bolkiah, according to Brunei folk history, is the "Nakhoda Ragam" or the "Singing Captain", the reputed conqueror of the Philippines. The tradition even names the cannon with which he was said to have taken Manila – "Si Gantar Alam", translated as the "Earth-shaking Thunderer". He established an outpost in the center of the area of Seludong. According to this legend, Sultan Bolkiah of Brunei is the grandfather of Ache, the old rajah, also known as Ladyang Matanda or Rajah Matanda. | c. 1500–1524 | – | – |
| Hwan (possibly "Honourable" or "Lord") | Namwaran | Probable person-name mentioned in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, as the ancestor of Namwaran and Bukah and original debtor of the transaction in question. The title "Hwan" is translated "Honourable" or "Lord" in different lines of the LCI, depending on context. | Translation of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription by Antoon Postma | |
| Dayang | Angkatan | Probable person-name mentioned in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, as the descendant (daughter) of Namwaran. Related through Namwaran to Bukah. | Translation of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription by Antoon Postma | |
| Bukah | Probable person-name mentioned in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, as the descendant of Namwaran related to the Lady (Dayang) Angkatan | Translation of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription by Antoon Postma | ||
| Kasumuran (uncertain) | Possible person-name mentioned in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription. The word may either be a reference to a Lord Minister or a reference to an ancient name of the Southeast coast region of Laguna Lake | Translation of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription by Antoon Postma | Identified by Postma as possibly being either a place-name or a person-name. Possible reference the Southeast coast region of Laguna Lake proposed by Tiongson | |
| Gat | Bishruta | Probable person-name mentioned in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, as the representative of the Lord Minister of "Binwagan" | Translation of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription by Antoon Postma | Postma's conclusions about the Bulacan location of Binwagan have been questioned by local Laguna historian Tiongson (2006) |
| Ganashakti(uncertain) | Probable person-name mentioned in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, as the representative of Jayadewa, Lord Minister of "Pailah" | Translation of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription by Antoon Postma | Postma's conclusions about the Bulacan location of Pailah have been questioned by local Laguna historian Tiongson (2006) | |
| Datu | Magat Salamat | Co-instigator of the 1588 "Conspiracy of the Maharlikas," son of Bunao Lakan Dula who served as datu under his cousin and co-instigator, Rajah Sulayman's son Agustin de Legaspi who had been pronounced Paramount Ruler over the datus of Tondo after the death of Lakandula. | Firsthand accounts of the Legaspi Expedition (mid-1570s); Spanish genealogical documents | Firsthand accounts generally accepted by Philippine historiographers, with corrections for hispanocentric bias subject to scholarly peer review; veracity of genealogical documents subject to scholarly peer review. |
| Luis Amanicaloa | Participant in the 1588 "Conspiracy of the Maharlikas." Member of the Maginoo class from Tondo. | |||
| Felipe Amarlangagui | Participant in the 1588 "Conspiracy of the Maharlikas." Member of the Maginoo class from Katanghalan. | |||
| Lord Balingit | Participant in the 1588 "Conspiracy of the Maharlikas." The Datu of Pandakan | |||
| Pitongatan (Pitong-gatang) | Participant in the 1588 "Conspiracy of the Maharlikas." Member of the Maginoo class from Tondo. | |||
| Kapulong | Participant in the 1588 "Conspiracy of the Maharlikas." Member of the Maginoo class from Candaba, Pampanga. | |||
| Juan Basi | Participant in the 1588 "Conspiracy of the Maharlikas." The Datu of Tagig (Taguig) | |||
| Esteban Taes (also known as Ginoong Tasi) | Participant in the 1588 "Conspiracy of the Maharlikas." A Datu from Bulacan. |
The first part of the document says that:
On this occasion, Lady Angkatan, and her brother whose name is Bukah, the children of the Honourable Namwaran, were awarded a document of complete pardon from the Senepati of Tundun, with the title of His Honor the Lord of Pailah, Jayadewa.
The document was a sort of receipt that acknowledged that the man named Namwaran had been cleared of his debt to the Chief and Commander of Tundun, which in today's measure would be about 926.4 grams of gold.
The article mentioned that other places in the Philippines and their rulers: Pailah (Lord Minister Jayadewa), Puliran Kasumuran (Lord Minister), Binwangan (unnamed). It has been suggested that Pailah, Puliran Kasumuran, and Binwangan are the towns of Paila, Pulilan, and Binwangan in Bulacan, but it has also been suggested that Pailah refers to the town of Pila, Laguna. More recent linguistic research of the Old Malay grammar of the document suggests the term Puliran Kasumuran refers to the large lake now known as Laguna de Ba'i (Puliran), citing the root of Kasumuran, *sumur as Old Malay for well, spring or freshwater source. Hence ka-sumur-an defines a water-source (in this case the freshwater lake of Puliran itself). While the document does not describe the exact relationship of the Chief and Commander of Tundun with these other rulers, it suggests that he was of higher rank.
Most of these describe events that took place after 1571–72, when forces under the command of MartĂn de Goiti, and later Miguel de Legazpi himself, arrived in Manila Bay. These are described in the numerous accounts of the Legazpi expedition, including those by the expedition's designated notary Hernando de Riquel, by Legazpi's successor Guido de Lavezares, and by Legazpi himself.
However, there are also some references to Maynila, Luzon, and Tondo in the accounts of the Magellan expedition in 1521, which, under the command of Sebastian Elcano, had captured a commander of naval forces for the Sultan of Brunei, whom the researchers William H. Scott and Luis Dery identified as Prince Ache, who would later become Rajah Matanda. These events, and the details Ache's interrogation, were recorded in accounts of Magellan and Elcano's men, including expedition members Rodrigo de Aganduru Moriz, Gines de Mafra, and the expedition's scribe Antonio Pigafetta.
Many of these relaciones were later published in compilations in Spain, and some were eventually translated and compiled into the multi-volume collection "The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898" by Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson.
Scott, in his seminal 1984 work " Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History", identifies a number of "quasi-historical" genealogical sources, which are not physically historical, but which contain genealogical information which claims to date back to early historic times. (1984). 9789711002268, New Day Publishers. ISBN 9789711002268 These include the Sulu and Maguindanao Tarsilas, and the Batu Tarsila of Brunei.
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